


Coping Mechanically

by zombiekittiez



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Brief past Joaquin/Kevin mentions, Dark, F/M, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Jarchie if you squint, Mental Anguish, Mental Instability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Voyeurism, barchie, bughead - Freeform, dealing with watching someone die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 18:12:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10836654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiekittiez/pseuds/zombiekittiez
Summary: If they had known, would they have watched the flash drive?Like really known.“I don't know,” says Veronica, Jughead, Kevin.“No,” says Archie.“Yes,” says Betty, but her voice breaks.Aftermath of watching a murder.





	Coping Mechanically

**Author's Note:**

> This is quite dark, so...

First it's the little things, and honestly that's where it stops for Kevin. He finds one of Joaquin's knives, a nice switchblade show piece that must have fallen out of his pocket while they made out in the back of his father's truck. Kevin takes to carrying it places. It gives him a little bit of security. He doesn't like rooms with only one exit. Even at Pop's he doesn't sit with his back to the door anymore- has to face it head on, has to face whatever death comes barging in. 

Archie stops sleeping. He takes to late night infomercials. He plays music a little less, is all. When he picks up a guitar or a pencil and a piece of paper all he can write down are octaves of screaming, of bullets, of death. His lyrics are a flat line stuffed in a freezer chest. 

Betty eats a little less, picks back up running. She runs in the middle of the road some nights, eyes closed, arms open, but she sticks to the neighborhood and usually Jughead keeps an eye out next door through the window or sitting on the roof. Her mother congratulates her when she loses three pounds. Polly watches her sister at the table, eyes full of concern but she wasn't there, she didn't see and Betty didn't tell her, she will take this story, the exact description of the sticky maple syrup dark stain on the floor around the body to her grave. 

Veronica starts shoplifting. Little things. Perfume tester bottles. Dollar eyeliners. Sometimes she is sloppy but she is a Lodge, she pays handsomely for most of her purchases so the shopkeepers shrug and write off the shrink and chalk it up to affluenza. She doesn't even keep them. They go into the dumpster before she makes it home. She feels like a dumpster. She spends more times in alleyways. She meets a boy or three. Veronica Lodge has never much cared about boys. 

Jughead wears the jacket. His is wet and it's cold out- he's just going out to the garage so it's fine. He wears it ten minutes, takes it off, soaked in cold sweat. The next time he makes it half an hour. Three hours. All night. He wears the jacket where it fits in- Southside, just walking and thinking. The jacket gives him safety and if any real Serpents see him in it, well. FP's reach has to be outside the jail or something. Or maybe they just know what it's like to grieve by running headfirst into the thing you hate. 

He doesn't see Betty. He is grateful, insanely grateful, can never repay her for the things she has done- turning a life brand of bitterness and exile as a murderer's son into a four year sentence. With good behavior, FP might be out to see his graduation. 

But Betty found the flashdrive, pulled it up on the computer, hit play. So they hate her maybe a little. 

Jug sees them most nights, some preppy rich kid from Central or Pembroke out to slum to pick up drugs or easy girls. Mostly he ignores them and they ignore the jacket. This one has something to prove. Pink Polo. He brushes by Jughead closely, shoulders jarring, says something. Maybe _snake._ Maybe _scum. Piece of shit. Deadbeat. Waste of space. Loser. Weak fuck. Useless trash._ He knows. He's heard them. He hears them every time he doesn't answer Betty's messages right away, every time he uses an excuse to get out of seeing her. 

Jughead turns around and slams Pink Polo's head into the metal railing of the fire escape. Leaves him groaning and holding handfuls of blood. This is the first fight. This is not the last. 

He's not sure exactly when he starts seeing Veronica around. She's wearing short skirts, high heels. Coming out of dark alleys, down shaky fire escapes, out of the back doors of trailers and the backseats of cars, wiping her mouth, pulling down her clothes. They pass each other with a polite nod, eerie, misplaced, him nursing bruised knuckles and her lipstick already smeared until one night there's no one else to fight or fuck so they end up doing a little of both. He loses his virginity in a rusted truck bed in an alley and afterward Veronica, acting on an instinct she can't fully explain, tucks her sodden panties into the front pocket of his jacket when he's not looking and leaves. 

He hasn't been watching for Betty on her night runs, but that's okay. It gives Archie something to do. Keep a lookout through the window while his best friend fucks his best girl in the dirt and rust. 

Jughead wanted blonde. He'd wanted gold and pink and white and candles and rose petals and affection and prom night and encouragement and hands stroking hair and ears and 

The next night, he puts on his jacket but just paces the garage. He can't see the way out. He can only see gold and pink and white and mistakes and he _misses_ her and _oh god I fucked up_ and _maybe maybe maybe_

So he climbs the ladder to her room and she is so thin. He can't tell till he kisses her, holds her close, strokes her side, takes her shirt off. She touches his jacket, traces the snake and looks at him with tremulous, beautiful eyes and _it's gonna be okay_ and _we're gonna be okay now_ and he shrugs out of his father's jacket and the panties fall out on the comforter. And it occurs to Jughead that maybe Veronica hates him a little too. 

And they haven't said it, the 'b' word, not for a while and maybe it was nothing because they hadn't said the 'l' word either, not directly to each other. Betty puts her shirt back on. Uses a tissue from the bedside table to pick up the underwear and offers it back to Jughead who puts it in his pocket and goes back down the ladder. 

And they're going to school, yeah, daytime is a lifetime away. They do homework. Go to pep rallies. Have milkshakes at Pop's. Jughead's gentle sarcasm has congealed into a thick ooze- Veronica's voice is shrill and hysterical. He calls her a _rich little slut with a daddy complex._ She calls him a _pathetic trailer trash virgin._ Betty digs her fingernails into her palms until there is so much blood you cannot miss it, it streams down her wrists to pool a little in the curve of her elbow. Archie tells her to stop, tells them to stop but his voice is weak from lack of sleep. Kevin's mouth is hard but his eyes are on the door. 

Jughead burns the jacket but the damage is done. All it does is leave a wet leather grease stain in the metal trashcan. The fumes from the paint make his lungs ache. He stops going out. 

It takes Jughead a few weeks to figure out what is going on. He comes upstairs from the garage- he basically lives in the garage- to find clean socks and sees the quick guilty flash of eyes from Archie- steal the last popsicle look, he calls it. His head turns and he sees it. Gold on pink on white. 

“She probably just wasn't paying attention when she changed,” Archie says, embarrassed. 

“Does it happen often?” Jughead asks. Archie doesn't answer. Jughead moves back up into Archie's room. He sees glimpses- lacy bras, boy cut underwear. A few of them he had glimpsed during intense make outs or heavy petting and his head swims from the change in perspective. Archie tries not to look when Jughead is there. He tries, but not hard. 

Jug sees her in the garden working with the weeds. The handle of the spade breaks in her hand. Betty sets it down coolly. Takes off her working gloves. Slaps herself once, hard, across the face. Puts her gloves back on and continues working. Jughead sends her a text but it's just _I'm sorry_ and she says _I know._ She does know. He's a sorry piece of work. 

It's a bad night. It's a _bad_ night. When Jughead rolls over on the air mattress he sees Betty at the window, sitting. There isn't much light on- just a little. Just enough. Her hands move. Her back arches. Gold on pink on white. He can hear from the bed, the frantic movements under the sheets, the little sobs. _I'm so fucked up_ Archie whispers _so fucked up._ When Archie finishes, Jug does too, silently, in his hand. Across the way, in the window, Betty cries. She curls into herself and cries and cries. 

They are coming back from Pop's and Betty gets into FP's truck beside Jughead. She sits very still. Jughead starts up the engine and they drive. 

“Let's go,” she says, and he knows she doesn't mean home. “Let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's just go.” And they talk about it on the drive. It'll be hard. They'll have to find a shelter or sleep in the truck till they got settled, found jobs. Get GEDs. Community College. Transfer to a University. She's thinking she might just get certified, be a dental hygenist. Maybe a teacher, they pay for school some states. Ratty apartment. Spacious loft. House with a yard. Picket fence. They will only have girl children, no Forsythes to haunt them. They will name them after Shakespeare- Hero, Juliet, Jessica. They will retire, travel. Die a few months apart. Live forever. _Love._ He loves her so much. He looks at her sad peaked face and has never felt this high, this low. The world down the road. He loves her so much he can't breathe. He can't breathe. 

He drives her home. 

When it's late and she wants to go jogging, Betty texts Archie and he takes her. He likes it and he's up anyway, working on a song he might never finish but it's something to do. She keeps the curtain closed mostly. Archie takes to texting her goodnight and a few minutes later she responds and then her curtains open and the blinds lift but she wears pajamas- the good kind, pink and soft and full and she climbs into bed and leaves the light on so he has something to look at when it's too much. Veronica's mom pays for her therapy. Ron and Kevin take self defense classes. He takes her for walks around the park, in the North side of town. She starts wearing sweatpants, sometimes. But nice ones. 

Jughead takes the bus to Florida.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a thing I felt compelled to do. Most of these increased risk taking behaviors are recorded symptoms of PTSD in teens and adults. I can't imagine they're coming out of this happy. Comments are **always** appreciated.


End file.
